Before the bright lights of HBO go on tonight at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California for the eagerly anticipated ?Boxing After Dark? telecast featuring the junior welterweight scrap between Brandon Rios and Mike Alvarado and the WBC junior featherweight title tilt between Nonito Donaire and Toshiaki Nishioka, a grudge match that will be every bit as contentious as the vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan takes place on the undercard.
The candidates here are lightweights Jose Roman and Javier Garcia, who were supposed to have met earlier in the year. But when Roman came up ill on the day of the fight, it was postponed. And in the lead-up to this bout, finally taking place tonight, the always talkative crew from Oxnard put out this attack ad on Roman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG8QOr54AaI
So has Roman seen the video? ?I have,? he admitted last week after his day?s work was completed at ?The Rock? in Carson, where he gave Alvarado four rounds of sparring. ?I only took like 10 seconds watching it because I?m not interested in those kids games.? Roman, a soft-spoken sort, wants to be above the fray. He says of the message delivered to him. ?Just talking sheep, man. There?s only two guys going up in that ring. There?s only two that are going be in there.?
So what is the genesis of all this? Roman and Garcia were scheduled to originally hook up on March 23rd at the Casino del Sol in Tucson, Arizona. Roman explains, ?I was feeling good and I prepared really good and I was ready to go. But when we were driving from the hotel to the casino, I started feeling dizzy and when I got to the locker room – I was actually in Diego Magdaleno?s locker room – and I was just laying back seeing if I went to sleep and woke up and see if the dizziness would go away. Then I went to my locker room and I was just feeling really sick and I started throwing up and they advised me not to fight because I had everything to lose. I?m like, ?Well, I?m already here.? So I wanted to get paid and everything; my family went and I wanted to pay my trainers for all their hard work and it didn?t happen, y? know??
The fight was eventually moved back again before landing on this date.
?The second time, we?re going to fight a month later; he ended up getting injured or something like that,? recalled Roman, who has a mark of 14-0 with 11 stoppages. ?Stuff happens, y? know? So OK, we postponed till next time and it kept going like that. They kept changing the dates for us, so they finally found a date, July 7th. They told me I was going to fight him then. I said, ?OK, whatever. I don?t really care who they put me up against, whoever they give me, just put me up there.? Who I ended up getting was Rodolfo Armenta. So it didn?t matter; whoever I fight, I fight. So that happened, whatever, so I asked [promoter] Ray[Alcorta], ?What happened to Garcia?? and he?s like, ?We?ll get him next time. We want to get him on a televised fight.? So they made the fight for September 13th at the Hard Rock and it was going to be televised and we were preparing for that fight and a couple of weeks before that, they told us he had already signed a contract with another guy instead of the contract with me. So we ended up moving it to October 13th.?
It only makes sense to have this fight in Southern California given that Garcia is based out in Oxnard and Roman hails from Garden Grove. Roman has sold a good number of tickets for this fight. While Roman may claim there is no ill will toward Garcia, Ray Alcorta, his adviser, admits, ?I think there?s a little bit of bad blood there.? He says that when Roman took ill in the locker room back in March, ?The inspector in Arizona saw a guy who was visibly sick and they said that even if he wanted to, they weren?t going to allow him to fight.?
This game is full of individuals filled with testosterone and machismo. When a fighter pulls out of a bout, there will always be accusations of ducking or running away. It?s been going on for years, whether it?s a multimillion-dollar championship fight or a prelim bout such as this.
Does Roman feel as though his integrity was questioned?
?No, if anyone wants to question me, they can say it to my face,? he says with the first outward hint of emotion. ?I personally like talking like a man. If you?re going to say something, say it to my face. That?s the way I am.?
Ask any fighter, the worst feeling is putting in all the work – and then not being able to put it into use. Months of work, all for naught. ?Because I mean, I don?t think anyone likes that, training and everything and I can understand why he?s upset. But stuff happens. You get sick or you get injured and you can?t fight. But yeah, all that training and hard work to not fight, it sucks,? said Roman.
Regardless of any insinuations or accusations, things will be settled once and for all over eight rounds (or less).
?I think we have a favorable match-up in this fight,? said Alcorta. ?Javier Garcia has been a little bit more active but he hasn?t fought any big fighters or guys to get ready for a guy like Jose, who?s really a six-foot tall lightweight, which is really hard to find anyways. But Jose, he fought Rodolfo Armenta who, size-wise and power-wise, is a legitimate 140-pounder and he looked very good against the guy. He did all the right things that I think are going to help him against someone like Javier Garcia. His confidence is very high; his conditioning, the training camp went very well. We helped Alvarado on several occasions; it was very good work and I don?t take anything away from Javier Garcia but with the way he looked with Alvarado, who?s one of the best fighters at 140 in my opinion, I think he?s well-prepared and we have an advantage with the height, with the reach and with the power in this bout.?
Alcorta, who handled both Jose and his brother, Jesse?s career from the very start, says of the video put out by Garcia that, ?I wasn?t offended; I thought it was a little bit childish. I mean, I?ve known Robert Garcia (who trains Javier) for many years. I know he wasn?t in the video; his son was in the video. But I think stuff like that when you?re directly in the camp and directly part of a team, you leave that for the other people to throw dirt on someone, not people within the camp. Not someone who?s within the family of the team. Leave that for someone else.?
Alcorta admits that the mudslinging went both ways (Hey, it is the campaign season, after all).
?There were some issues with Romans? camp putting some silly stuff on Facebook. We made it real clear that you can?t be doing stuff like that. It?s a professional sport, a professional game and some of that stuff is childish. But eventually someone?s going to have to answer for it. And in this case, Javier Garcia?s going to have to answer for it and I?m sure he?ll be well-prepared for it. But in the ring, Jose, in the back of his mind, he?s going to know what was said on that stuff. He?s going to leave no doubt that fear was no issue.?
So is there any extra motivation going into this fight for Roman? Seemingly, no more than usual.
?Motivation? I always have motivation; I?m always hungry. I do it for my son, ?he states. ?My son is my motivation but I?m going to win the fight.?
